Spin Doctor – New Smaller Bobbin!

I wound the new bobbin with the more closely spaced poles the other night – definitely a better approach than building the bobbin around the neodymium cores. Basically, I glued the blank flanges to the keepers and using the keepers as a drill template, I bored the holes in the blank flanges.

They came out pretty good! I think that drill schedule will work better. It certainly took a less time. Casting and sanding the keeper is still taking a while. I’ll have to work on that. I had a little more trouble with flaring. I think having the magnets in there added more gluing surface. If this magnet-less winding procedure works, I might look into making another plate for the winder that sandwiches the bobbin in there so it won’t flare.

Next, I epoxied the wire terminals to the bobbins.

I used those breakaway header pins. You can’t beat ’em for cheapness or convenience, although I’m still troubled by this joint; when I solder, the housing heats up enough for the wire to loosen. It hardens back up as it cools, but I can see this being problematic. I’m going to look into making some little mount out of stripboard and try using the right-angle pins instead.